


Answering Machine Full

by estuary



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 02:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estuary/pseuds/estuary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Aren't you glad you have this crack team of sleuths looking for you?</i><br/>Looking for Calliope. Partial epistolary; Roxy likes too many girls.</p><p>Jane/Roxy; one-sided Roxy/Calliope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Answering Machine Full

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Excaliboner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Excaliboner/gifts).



> Happy Ladystuck! 
> 
> Riffing on this prompt: _Roxy and Jane, focused on finding Calliope, eventually end up in a... something together. I would appreciate it being Roxy focused with a bit of angst - dealing with alcoholism and/or depression at not feeling worthy enough for her role in the game, etc._

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering uranianUmbra [UU]  
  
TG: hey  
TG: calliope  
TG: calllliiiooooopeeeeee  
TG: i know ur not rly in a place to respond  
TG: but w/ it getting more and more apparent that what we need to do  
TG: is find your particular sweet n helpful butt  
TG: so you had better stay where you are  
TG: or face the pain!!!  
TG: lol jk I know you mite have to be traveling  
TG: or maybe its a spiritual condition sorta thing  
TG: anyway wherever u are were coming downtown  
TG: uptown  
TG: over hill an dale  
TG: to figure out where ur rude ass bro has you hidden

(Getting everyone to agree to The Great Calliope Quest had been eerily easy, considering the resistance frequently thrown up against other proposed efforts to the general quest council. 

Ultimately they decided that two groups would perform better than one. Jane was still getting all furiously fussy over all things Dirk-related and doubly so to all things Dirk-and-Jake related. She was going to break off one of her teeth gnashing them sooner or later, so everyone settled with keeping to their old questing duos. 

Maybe it would have done them all better to split up the other way. J-squared could hash out their considerable and myriad issues with feelings re: various people; Roxy and Dirk could hash out whatever was left of that sliver of hope they might meet their Mom. 

Roxy was always astoundingly good at hindsight.)

TG: calliope put on your drama waders  
TG: (those are like little pants u can wear so the drama dont get all over you and i just made them up)  
TG: i get this rl big sense that after we all died stuff changed  
TG: like  
TG: should that be a big deal  
TG: ive been dead once  
TG: i died  
TG: motherfuckin kaputt  
TG: shouldnt that b kinda important  
TG: no one ever talks abt this shit in vidya  
TG: maybe we just don't have a lot of time to think about being dead  
TG: weve got SERIOUS BUSINESS were attendin too  
TG: basically on the daily rn  
TG: but what if were only like partially us anymore  
TG: look at me i am preaching at the pulpit of the choir of dying over bein a shitty video game exploit  
TG: ttyl calliope  
TG: (calliope)

(Calliope Quest with her bffsie turned out to be sort of a welcome break in the end. They spent their days treasure hunting, their nights hunting for treasure – only the treasure turned out to be a sweet, mild-mannered alien chick who looked like Roxy-had-no-idea and came from Roxy-had-no-idea and was probably dead. 

“I feel dreadful, sometimes, Roxy, that I might have been – really dismissive of you!” 

“Wow, Janey, is this about not trusting my stories or whatever? That's all 

“No! I mean, yes, partially, but also I know how much support you've given me all throughout these recent ordeals, and you've been a very good friend. I think if I could just get a handle on these ridiculous feelings of mine and stop summarily stuffing my foot into my mouth -!"

Roxy had been putting on her maximum suave 

That was probably the night they became space-girlfriends, or quest-girlfriends.

'Girlfriends' maybe took it a little too far, given the floundering way everything happened in a 'maybe-I-guess-well-okay' sort of way, an 'I-still-like-boys-but-I-like-you-too' way.

Mediators are supposed to keep their hands to themselves, but in the middle of some really shitty surreal Picasso dream-landscape, Roxy put her hands somewhere else entirely, netting her fingers at the back of her neck and kissing at the bridge of her glasses when they both mysteriously seemed too shy to go much further. 

Jane didn't seem to want it to be a big deal; she was sort of making a production enough about it in her own head for the both of them, anyway. Their posse was at least 66% all the way to just dating each other all together, anyway.

It was a big deal, after all, but not in the way Jane had been hoping to avoid. Couldn't it be a big deal some other way, the personal kind that meant more to her than anyone else who might find out and say something shitty?)

TG: calliopeeeeeee  
TG: i havent had a single drink since i died  
TG: u kno  
TG: that thing that happened  
TG: yay me  
TG: janey says shes rly proud of me  
TG: but im proud too  
TG: things were grade a dire for me i was  
TG: lemme tell u i was in such a poorly way  
TG: so this is a rly good thing  
TG: n thats been a while i guess like months  
TG: time is an enigma  
TG: i bet thats y we dont have a time player  
TG: its been a while tho  
TG: n im wonderin  
TG: this isnt rly a feeling that goes away ever is it  
TG: im always gonna be sittin here partially wishin i had a drink  
TG: at least just a lil bit  
TG: forever  
TG: wow

(“I think I may have been unjustly hard on the guys.” 

Calliope Quest made Jane stop grinding her teeth quite so often, even when they read the updates from Team 2A at the end of the day. Less time fighting overall meant more time talking (good) and thinking (occasionally less so). Jane was a stress-baker in addition to being a happiness-baker. Roxy was putting on a little weight. They held hands and had real sleepovers that usually didn't end in pillow fights, and sometimes, when things were at their ironically straightest of dire straits, they talked about the less-good thoughts and the classy alien broad they were investigating.

“Before all of this, I always felt as though I was living a very small life as part of something much larger.” 

Sometimes it was like this: A confession, usually Jane's, like this one, about mistakes and missed opportunities and the bizarre configuration their lives all were, four fated magical kid heroes.

This wasn't exactly a foreign concept: How often had she felt like the smallest flotsam, her house a little piece of a little refugee community. There wasn't much lonelier, really, than being the last of your kind. 

But this was Janey's dish; it was her story and her self-discovery, and being lonely, that's not the type of the thing you can bond over explicitly, because everyone is a small part of something else in a different way. 

“I've really learned a lot just being here. _Especially_ about how hard it is to judge people on preconceived notions about them! We've just had to go through the growing pangs of our friendships all over again.” 

Everyone was exactly how they had always seemed to Roxy. 

“You talked to the D-J boys yet about our growing pangs? Call me way optimistic but I bet they'd love to hear from you in addition to getting my bulletin updates on TGCQuest.”) 

TG: man am i just like everyones mom or what 

(Jane wasn't ready to go quite that far yet.)

TG: im just sayin  
TG: I guess  
TG: how nice it would be 2 be hearing from you  
TG: even if i think ur rly overestimating my ability  
TG: not like  
TG: putting holes in the fabric of the telescreen blocking out the viewership isnt one of the greatest tricks ever  
TG: how mad has that gotta make every1 watching at home hollllllyyyyy shit id be pissed  
TG: if it were me watchin  
TG: and not u know  
TG: doin it  
TG: but it was so nice to have to all reassuring and believin in me in shit  
TG: however sappy that sounds you were the softest warmest towel on my vodka-blemished face  
TG: u could probly use s/t to that effect now huh

(They were miles from where they'd started – miles, if you measured time and space and the landscape of real-time multiplied by dream-time, then converted it back to quantifiable measurements. 

They hadn't even met another wayward traveler – not even another firefly.

“Perhaps it would be much easier if we had a map.” She could see the fervor draining from Jane's eyes every day. Poor turnout for a super detective, but if even the most skilled of sleuthing was proving ineffective and even the swiftest digital digging Roxy could pull off with her phone computer.

“I'm getting kinda tired, too, Janey.” Suddenly and terribly, like falling into the ocean, she realized just how tired she had been getting all along, long before she'd ever died or stopped drinking or bit Jane's lip into her mouth and wondered why they all couldn't get along.) 

TG: were still lookin 4 u  
TG: jsyk  
TG: and I can guarantee  
TG: janey and i have covered like at least 2x the ground as di stri and the j-man  
TG: we are just that super great at hunting down the details  
TG: arent u glad u have this crack team of super sleuths looking for you  
TG: i think u will rly like her provided she hasnt stopped thinking u exist  
TG: like santa claus  
TG: w/e I havent stopped believin at all and i think once we find you  
TG: i bet well all rly get along  
TG: total slice of pie  
TG: cake

TG: part of me   
TG: like this meteor sized particle  
TG: knows im screamin into the ether  
TG: all desperate like  
TG: calliope calliope calliope

(“But we have to keep going, or else.”

“Or else what?”)

TG: but i promised i wld do that  
TG: i will always b looking for you


End file.
